Abstract

Until now psychoanalytic literature has paid little attention to the psychoanalytic consulting room or the arrangement of couch and armchair and their likely effect on the psychoanalytic process. In this qualitative study, the answers of 20 former analysands reporting about their analyses in a guided interview were interpreted. It was found that room and psychoanalytic process interact very closely with one another. In the course of the analysis analysands define room implicitly in five different ways unaware of their doing so. Room is defined as
1 the complete room in which the couch and armchair stand (The Outer Room). Subjectively, the analysand is in the analyst’s room and is assigned a place on the couch for his own use. Analysis consists mainly on the analysand’s adapting to the analytic procedure.
2 the couch setting (The Interactive or Symbiosis Room). Subjectively, the analysand is in his own room. Psychoanalysis consists mainly of regressive dyadic interactions between analysand and analyst. The analysand idealizes the room and is unaware of any irritating element.
3 the couch (The Individual Room). Subjectively, the analysand is in his own room, concentrating on the confrontation with himself during the analytic work. The analyst accompanies the process mainly protectively by having the consulting room ready.
4 the complete room with all its details as the basis of the analysand’s own concept of a room (The Separate Room). The analysand has an increasingly critical view of the consulting room, the analyst and all the details of the analytic process. He now becomes fully aware of all the elements belonging to room and process. He conceptualises his own idea of the perfect room. His often vehement criticism of all the elements of the room is central to the analytic work at this stage.
5 the complete consulting room including the couch setting (The Foreign Room). After the end of his analysis, the analysand returns to his old consulting room and discovers, mainly unconsciously (e.g. by smell, acoustic phenomena), that his former consulting room has become foreign to him. He is no longer in his own room and soberly looks at an unattractive room in which he once experienced all the decisive periods of his life.
The analysand goes through these five phases (“rooms”) respectively. The process is not reversible. On account of the interaction stated between room perception and psychoanalytic process this room theory can serve as a means of efficacy research in order to evaluate the depth of the psychoanalytic process and the qualitative personality changes within it.